Hugh Freeze offered his thoughts Thursday on the situation between Michael Oher and the Tuohy family.
Freeze is intimately familiar with the situation. Freeze was the head coach of the football team at Briarcrest Christian School in Shelby County, Tenn. from 1995-2004. Oher was a star offensive lineman on the team and lived with the Tuohy family during Freeze’s last year as the school’s football coach.
“Listen, I love Michael Oher. He’s like part of our family,” Freeze told reporters. “And I love the Tuohys. I think it’s sad, and certainly don’t claim to understand all the ins and outs of adoption, conservatory, all of that. But I know what I witnessed, and I witnessed a family that totally took in a young man. And I think without that, there is no story.”
Freeze also said that despite Oher last week filing a legal petition in which he accused the Tuohy family of nefarious behavior, the family would still want to reconcile with the former football player.
“I know this, if Michael Oher called Sean right now and said, ‘Let’s work this thing out,’ Sean and Leigh Anne (Tuohy) would be there in a hurry to hug his neck and tell him he’s loved. I hope he feels that. And, certainly, I don’t claim to — until you walk in people’s shoes, I don’t claim to have all the answers to anything.
“Whatever happens will happen, of course. I think the facts will come out. I love both sides of it. Sean and Leigh Anne Tuohy did something that probably most families — a lot of us talk about doing things — they actually put the shoes on and pulled the boots up and got in the arena and did something. I think that’s admirable,” Freeze said.
Oher said in his legal filing that the Tuohy family tricked him into a legal conservatorship agreement that he only learned about in February, despite him writing in his 2011 book that he had signed a conservatorship agreement. He also accused the family of profiting off “The Blind Side” movie while he received no money from the hit film. The family responded and said Oher was attempting a $15 million shakedown of them.
Freeze is currently the head coach at Auburn. He made the jump from coaching in high school to working in college football at Ole Miss in 2005, the same year that Oher began his college football career with the Rebels.
